Shaping climate policy through science: Meet IFE host research institute, CIRED

Building long-lasting relations with organizations which host its interns is a vital part of IFE's work. Leading European research institutes in the sciences including social sciences, where student-interns can participate meaningfully in high-level research projects, are more likely to return IFE's calls because they know they can count on students' preparedness and seriousness of purpose.

IFE is proud to have earned that degree of trust with CIRED (International Center for Research on Environment and Development), not only in light of the world-class results and widely respected policy prescriptions CIRED scientists produce, but also because of the institute's decades-long commitment to environmental solutions that work for the Global South. Well before that term existed, and even before 'sustainable development', CIRED's founder-to-be, Ignacy Sachs, rescued the UN's plans for a world first environmental conference (Stockholm, 1972) from being scrapped due to developing nations' suspicion that global environmental policy was just the latest ploy by rich nations to maintain their dominance. Sachs (who had just published a harsh critique specifically of the policy conclusions to the Club of Rome's “Limits to Growth” report, from a development point of view) agreed and, at the preparatory seminar for Stockholm, laid out a third way of development – “sustainable” – implicating wealthy countries in the same development path as emerging areas, featuring new measures of well-being, changing patterns of consumption, reliance on appropriate technologies, de-centralized governance, an emphasis on local resources, recycling, waste management, and a host of other policy proposals and analytic methods emphasizing “eco-development” (another prescient neologism) that convinced developing nations to stay on board.

The next year, 1973, Sachs founded CIRED within the Paris university system, the same year that the UN's Environmental Program (UNEP) took shape. Fifty years later, CIRED enjoys an international reputation for its steadfast, rigorous focus on innovative methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative, for analyzing practical problems of environmental protection, climate change, sustainable economies and, more recently bio-diversity, while drawing on a broad but integrated set of disciplines (recently adding the very pertinent area of economic history) for feasible solutions. Throughout its history, CIRED has maintained its heterodox critique of mainstream economics and its macro-economic obsessions and narrow definitions of growth and – therefore – de-growth, straitjacketing true development.

In 1988 the UNEP created the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and CIRED was fully involved in this initiative by the time of its second report. When the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, its leadership included three members of CIRED. In 2015 CIRED instigated the founding of IMACLIM, an international research network devoted to large-scale but finely-grained climate modeling methods and the articulation between national and global research topics. Members include research institutes in over a dozen countries representing nearly half of the world's population. IMACLIM collaborates with Stanford University's Energy Modeling Forum (EMF), the IPCC itself where CIRED members figure prominently among the authors or recent reports, the G8's Low Carbon Society Research Network (LCS-R Net) and other large-picture climate change research bodies.

CIRED's renown is due to its significant contribution to the study of environmental problems and climate change implications while advocating for policy responses; it is a research institute with a think tank's objectives or a think tank with a highly developed methodological core. CIRED consults to the OECD, the World Bank, the International Energy Agency and other multilateral bodies. Above all it remains true to its founding mission of articulating environmental concerns with development goals, short term with long term perspectives, social science with engineering and natural science, and methodological prowess with societal stakes.

CIRED is also committed to training future experts and is a wonderful place for students focusing on environmental study to get involved in research. IFE is indeed fortunate to have a relationship with CIRED allowing it to propose an internship here to qualified and motivated students, particularly in the area of public policy research, economic analysis or international regulation. Some examples:

• Abigail (International Studies - American University) “Will the Kigali Amendment [to the Montreal Protocol on HFCs] be a Climate Solution?”

• Madeline (Government - College of William & Mary) “Is Litigation an Effective Tool to Address Climate Change?”

• Luca (International Public Affairs - Brown University) “What Can We Expect from the Minamata Convention on Mercury?”

• Lauren (Economics - University of Texas) “An Analysis of the African Air Conditioner Market in the Context of Climate Change”

• Ishan (Economics, Development – UC Berkeley) “Understanding Cities' Climate Collaboration on a Global Scale”

• Patcha (Environmental Studies – Brown University ) “How do international initiatives contribute to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC in the industrial sector?”.

For these and other students, conducting research at CIRED was/is an exciting opportunity.